


Free Beer

by delires



Category: Glee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-07
Updated: 2012-07-07
Packaged: 2017-11-09 09:31:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/453973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delires/pseuds/delires
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brittany corners him by the lockers on a Tuesday to ask him for his help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Free Beer

Brittany corners him by the lockers on a Tuesday to ask him for his help. She hands him a hand-drawn flyer, wax crayon on baby blue construction paper, which reads:

'BRITTANY S. PEARCE INVITES YOU TO THE BRITTANY S. PEARCE MAGICAL MYSTERY MASQUERADE PARTY. FREE BEER. CLOTHING OPTIONAL.'

The date of the party is this coming Friday, but that isn’t the part which really catches Blaine’s notice. He reads the instruction three times before deciding to ask.

“‘No tornadoes will be admitted’?”

“That’s right,” Brittany says, with an authoritative nod. “Bouncers on the doors will make sure that none get in, so you don’t have to worry about that at all.” She shifts her weight from one foot to the other as she hugs her binder against her red and white uniform. “Will you be my co-host? Obviously, I’ll put your name on the flyer.”

“Um,” Blaine closes his locker and heaves his bag up onto his shoulder. “I’m honoured you’re asking. But what makes you think I’m the best person to help you?”

Brittany tilts her head to the side and touches his bowtie with her fingertips. “You can make things stick to you. I need someone who knows about that. To make the masks stay up,” she says. “I also think that you’re really fun when you’re drunk.”

“Thank you?”

“And you’re the only boy here I haven’t made out with. I’m back there again. Like, I keep collecting the whole set, but then new people come. What am I supposed to do?”

“You’ve made out with every guy here?” Blaine asks, eyeing a bunch of the hockey players who are marauding past down the corridor. “What about Kurt?”

“Silly,” Brittany chuckles and shoves his shoulder playfully. Blaine starts to laugh along with her but then she says, “He was my boyfriend before he was your boyfriend. So. Just remember that,” and things aren’t funny anymore, especially not when she adds, “He tastes like cherries,” in a voice that sounds almost wistful.

Blaine is already thinking about how he has to go and find Kurt immediately, because if this is true then Kurt will never again be allowed to get away with using the ‘at least I never thought I was straight for Rachel Berry’ line in the middle of an argument. But Brittany smiles and lays a hand on Blaine's arm as though nothing at all weird has been said. “Come to my house tonight, okay? We can get to work.”

Her ponytail swings back and forth as she trots away down the hallway.

*

Brittany serves him a glass of homemade lemonade and a plate of animal crackers, and then makes him sit cross-legged on her carpet with them while she writes down a guest list in her notebook.

Her bedroom is peaceful and sweet-smelling. There are floral-patterned walls and the largest cat that Blaine has ever seen curled up on the bed. It might have to do with the shelves of CDs he already owns for himself, or maybe the nostalgic Labyrinth poster (his favourite movie as a kid) which is pinned to one wall, but there is something about this room that makes him feel safe. It is like someone has inflated a bubble of protection around them. It’s nice.

Brittany writes with a pen that is fat and sparkly pink and has a sort of rubbery pom-pom on the end of it. Blaine can’t stop looking at it and thinking of sex toys, which is entirely inappropriate, so he eats his crackers and tries to keep all awkward questions inside his head where they belong, instead of saying them out loud. The stuffed animals on the shelf are already judging him with their button eyes.

At the very top of her list Brittany prints the name ‘Santana’ in such adorably careful letters that it’s just enough to excuse that dreadfully phallic pen. Brittany pauses to look up at Blaine and then writes his name on the line underneath Santana’s. After another pause, she also writes ‘Brittany’.

“I’ve put a star here, because that shows you’re a host,” she says, as she draws the same symbol beside her own name. “Then the bouncers will know you’re important.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She taps the pen against the pad. “What other people do we know?”

“Kurt?”

Brittany nods and starts to write the name. Blaine tilts his head, to see the list better. “No, you spell it with a ‘K’,” he says, drawing the shape of the letter in the air with his finger when Brittany looks blank. “The one that looks like it has kicking legs?”

The huge cat has climbed off the bed and wandered over to sniff at the plate of animal crackers. It has already swallowed the back end of a hippopotamus before Blaine notices and shoos it away.

“Okay. I get it,” Brittany is saying. “Is that why he chose it? Because of the legs?”

Blaine stares at her. He has never engaged with someone like this before. It’s incredibly surreal. “I don’t think so. I’m not sure he chose it at all.”

“Both of our names start with boobs. That’s okay for me. I like boobs.”

The cat returns to swipe the rest of the hippo while Blaine’s mouth is still hanging open.

“Shall...I just write down the rest of the names?” he says, after a moment, reaching for the pen. “You should be doing some of the more important stuff.”

“Okay,” Brittany says. “I have to decorate Lord Tubbington’s mask anyway. He won’t do any of the work himself but still wants all the benefits.” The cat is licking hippo crumbs from its paw. Brittany stares down at it. “You have no power over me,” she tells it solemnly.

“Is that what made you want to have a masquerade?” Blaine points to the Labyrinth poster on the wall as Brittany drags craft supplies and two half-decorated masks out from under the bed. The larger one has a unicorn horn attached to it. The cat-sized one looks like it might be a Ninja Turtle. “I love that movie. The ball scene especially. Who wouldn’t want to waltz with David Bowie in spandex?”

“I like things that aren’t what they look like,” Brittany says, then reaches over and takes her pen back from Blaine. “Do you know why this is my favourite pen?”

Blaine bites his lip to make sure he doesn’t answer that honestly. He watches instead as Brittany twists until the pom-pom comes loose in her hand, revealing a hidden compartment inside the pen, which is filled with little pixie sticks. She holds it out for him to see. “Look. Isn’t that cool?”

Clearly, Blaine is growing into one of those dirty old men who sees sex everywhere. He laughs, ashamed of himself. “You have candy in your pen.”

Brittany nods. “For emergencies. Like, the kind where you need reminding that life is sweeter than you think. That’s what Santana said. She gave it to me, for when people call me stupid. I don’t like when people do that. It makes me really need sugar. Sugar is magically healing. Do you want one?”

She tears the plastic stick open at one end before she gives it to him and Blaine suddenly understands that she isn’t stupid at all. It’s just that she only pays attention to the things that really matter. “Brittany?” he says.

“Yes, co-host?”

“I think you probably make people’s lives sweeter just by being in them.”

“Aww.” She squeezes his arm and bites the end off another stick. “I think you’re a bit like a pixie stick too. In fact, I think that’s maybe what your whole mask should be made of.”

They knock their candies together in a toast.

“This will be the most fabulous party in McKinley’s history,” Blaine says as Brittany tosses her pixie stick back like a shot of liquor. “We are going to rock it out. We’ll make the best team.”

“Of course,” she says, as though this has been obvious to her from the very start.


End file.
